THE AMOS TUCK SCHOOL OF ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE

Of the thirty-three students enrolled in the Tuck School during the past year, twenty-three were members of the first-year class, eight were registered in the second-year class as candidates for the degree of Master of Commercial Science, and two were registered in the second-year class as special students not candidates for the degree. The enrollment for the first-year class was smaller than in the year 1909-10, the decrease being due to the fact that, through the application of stricter entrance requirements, a smaller proportion of the applicants for admission were accepted. The enrollment of second-year students has been equalled in previous years by but one class.

The doubts frequently expressed in the early life of the School, as to the practicability of interesting students in graduate courses in business administration, seem by experience to have been proved groundless. Apparently the Tuck School is to be concerned in the future not so much with attracting students as with the careful selection of young men whose ability and earnest purpose will carry them, with a maximum of benefit to themselves, through a rigorous training for business, and whose careers are likely, through efficient business service, to reflect credit on themselves and on the School.

The constituency of the School is constantly widening. Inquiries and applications are being received in increasing numbers each year from all parts of the United States and from foreign countries. Of equally important significance is the interest taken by the business world in the work and product of the School., Requests that the School furnish men for business positions normally greatly exceed the number of students available for such positions. Many of the requests are received from firms which are already employers of Tuck School graduates, and many come from concerns with whom the School has had no previous relations."

From its foundation in 1900 .as a pioneer in the field of graduate training for business, the School has made a persistent advance in unifying its organisation as a professional school, in developing the curriculum, and in intensifying the value of courses as, a preparation for business. As the School is now organized, the transition from college, work is marked by a distinct difference in the subject matter of instruction, in the amount and grade of work performed.

For the foundational work of the first year, a uniform schedule of eighteen hours a week is required; for each student courses in Accounting, Statistics, Economic Geography,. Resources and Industries of the United States, Commercial French, German, or Spanish, Business Procedure, Industrial Organization, Money and Banking, Transportation, Commercial History and Policy are prescribed:

In the second year, greater freedom of choice is allowed, to permit students to specialize in the respective fields of business service which they are preparing to enter. Each man, however, is required to continue through the year advanced courses in Accounting and a modern language, and to take a year's work in Commercial Lawy Corporation Finance and Investments, and Business Management. Opportunity to specialize is provided through pertinent, special courses and theses. Recently a greater emphasis upon the thesis and a closer supervision and direction of thesis work have resulted in enhancing the value of theses to students with respect both to the training afforded and the knowledge gained. The thesis subject normally pertains to concrete problems in the field of business which the student purposes to enter. The thesis involves a year's work which comprehends an investigation of a representative business, concern or of a particular field of business activity, an exhaustive study of the available, pertinent literature, together with conferences and correspondence with business men. The aim is that the thesis shall be not merely a description or a compilation, but that it shall represent original research into the nature of specific problems, into the relative significance of their elements and the controlling factors; and that propositions for the solution of such problems shall be submitted.

The efficiency of the School's work has been materially advanced by a staff of non-resident business executives and experts who give frequent lectures on subjects drawn from their experience. It has been established through experience that the best results are to be sedured by leaving to the regular instructors the function of organizing, developing and conducting courses, and by enlisting non-resident lecturers selected for their ability to supplement the subject matter of regular instruction, to present, and to lend the atmosphere of practical business affairs to, their discussions of business problems.

Within the past year, the Commercial Museum has been provided with equipment and a large number of exhibits have been installed. It is hoped that this important factor in the work of the School may continue to receive, as in the past, contributions of the materials and products of commerce.

Constant purchases and liberal contributions of books and periodicals have provided the Tuck School with a magnificent business library, adapted for use in instruction and research.

Now that the School is admirably housed, well equipped and organized for providing a sound business training, with a reputation already established and steadily growing, the sure increase in student enrollment tends constantly to tax the ability of the instructing staff to maintain the close, personal contact in individual instruction, which has been the basic ideal and motive of the School. Moreover, the ever-growing numbers of business men, who have come to recognize the utility of higher business education, are persistent in their demands that the School undertake to broaden its functions and to extend the scope of its work. Under these conditions, to maintain the relative standards of instruction and to realize its opportunities, the School has important problems pressing for solution. Additional instructors are needed to make possible the continuance of individual instruction and direction, to relieve the pressure which hampers instructors in keeping in essential touch with practical affairs, and to open up new fields of business science as a basis for widening the scope of instruction.

To attain these important ends, the Tuck School aims to enlist for its faculty men who, by education, business experience, ability to formulate and to present the subject matter of instruction,are capable of promoting the efficiency of the School. Though such men are not often so appreciative of the inherent rewards of teaching as to permit themselves to be lured from successful careers in business, occasionally their services are to be secured with highly important results to the institution. The Tuck School was most fortunate this year in the appointment to its faculty of Mr. W. H. Lyon, A.8., '01, LL.B., Harvard, '04, whose association with financial houses and projects has afforded him an admirable training in law and finance and has equipped him for the conduct of his courses in Corporation Finance, Practical Banking, and Commercial Law. It is hoped that the faculty will shortly be further augmented by the appointment of a Tuck School graduate who has achieved marked success in handling large problems of business management, and who, in other respects, represents the best type of instructor.

Announcement has already been made of the Conference on Scientific Management to be held in October under the auspices of the Tuck School. On that occasion, as has been noted in a previous number of the MAGAZINE, an elaborate program, to be participated in by the foremost efficiency experts of the country, has been arranged. From the expressed intentions of large numbers of business men, it is anticipated that the Conference will be largely attended and that it will prove a memorable event for the College and for the Tuck School.

That opportunities for an almost limitless educational service are clearly in sight for the Tuck School is apparent when all the elements of its progress and of its prospects are taken into account. Whether the School is to rise to its opportunities is to be determined chiefly by the measure of initiative, perspective, and energy exercised by its officers.